It’s been said so often in the past few days that it’s nearly a cliche. Nonetheless, there is some truth in labeling Murrieta the current center of the nation’s immigration debate.

Primarily that label comes after anti-immigration protestors prevented Border Patrol officers from depositing a group of several dozen immigrant families at a facility on the dusty southwestern edge of the Riverside County boomtown.

Hoping to stop a second Border Patrol attempt, the protestors camped out. Soon they were joined there by a group of folks representing the other side.

At the heart of the debate is the fate of hundreds of children from Central America. These kids are streaming across the border from Texas to California seeking sanctuary from whatever horrors are being perpetrated in Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras by dope dealers, child rapists, murderers and well-armed militias.

They know there’s freedom here — libertad.

You can remember north-south streets and avenues in the older part of Murrieta by knowing the names of the early presidents who fought for liberty in the face of tyranny.

Start with Washington Street and work your way through Adams, Jefferson, Madison and Monroe. Names that doubtless inspired the protestors.

On Sunday afternoon I made my way toward town traveling north from Temecula on Jefferson Avenue before turning east on Guava Street.

I parked in the weeds and gravel, just off Madison Avenue.

A group of about a dozen men and women draped in various shades of the American flag stared at me. I drive a black Crown Vic. Even though I was wearing khaki shorts and a golf shirt, I’m sure they figured me for a cop or a federal agent.

I listened as one elderly gentleman debated immigration policy with a sandal-wearing, pony-tailed opponent. They stood in the shade of a eucalyptus. It was amicable.

Across the way, a flat weed-strewn lot straddled the corner. Madison Avenue was barricaded. A cop sat in her car with the air-conditioning running.

The earth-toned and fortress-like INS building, about a block away, towered over the TV trucks and reporters gathered in the middle of the street near the police command post. I walked up, realized it was too hot to stick around and made my way back to my air-conditioned car for the ride home.

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As I shuffled through the dust and sweated in the oppressive heat, another of the protestors began to talk about liberty and surveillance. He said there were drones taking their pictures. He was sure the FBI was putting together a dossier on all of them. He supposed they’d be at his house asking questions.

I kept thinking, “What is the face of the America that will greet these kids?”

They don’t know about drones. They just want to eat and feel some measure of safety.

Do we protect them?

Or do we “send them back with birth control” as one protestor’s sign angrily suggested?

No doubt the heat of Southwest Riverside County fuels some of the madness. But, it was a weird way to celebrate Independence Day.

Personally I think the words of “New Colossus” engraved on one of the great symbols of this nation — the Statue of Liberty — should guide our thinking:

“Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

The protestors thinned out and the barricades came down Monday. Perhaps the “Don’t Tread on Me” crowd has forced the government to rethink immigration policy. Given the Obama Administration’s outright lack of transparency, it’s doubtful, but who knows?

In the meantime, the folks on Madison Avenue would do well to heed words of George Washington: “Whereas by an intermixture with our people (immigrants) or their descendants, get assimilated to our customs, measures and laws: in a word, we soon become one people.”

I think we can all agree that’s a better alternative than turning out a bunch of future Scarfaces.

Frank C. Girardot is the senior editor of the San Gabriel Valley News Group and author of the Kindle books “Name Dropper: Investigating the Clark Rockefeller Mystery” and “Deadly Sins: Manling Williams.” Twitter.com/FrankGirardot